This is a part of the story that isn't getting much coverage. While most of the news reports have said that Wikileaks published over 250,000 such cables, that's not exactly true. It has over 250,000 such cables and appears to have passed them on to its media partners, but it's slowly releasing specific cables -- with redactions -- and mostly after the press partners are releasing those same cables. In other words, it appears that Wikileaks is actually being judicious and discriminating in what it's releasing. Or, you could say (and probably should say) that Wikileaks is actually doing much of what a journalist would do in selecting which documents to pass along at this time.

But by trying to claim that Wikileaks is "just" a data dump, it's an effort to make Wikileaks look like it's not a journalistic or media entity -- thereby affording it fewer First Amendment rights. But, it appears that some in the press, such as Time, are being quite misleading in doing so. After Greenwald called them on it, Time issued a "correction," but it's a "correction that's not a correction" in that they basically say that Assange and some others disagree with some of Time's claims. But it makes no attempt to fix the factually incorrect statements.

Of course, this may come back to the view that many have: that certain elements in the press are upset about Wikileaks because it shows what a crappy job they've been doing on their own. If we had a functioning press that actually sought to hold the US government accountable, there would be much less of a need for Wikileaks. Instead, we have a press that focuses on keeping "access" to those in power, and that means not digging too deep at times.

Re: Eugene

""Or, you could say (and probably should say) that Wikileaks is actually doing much of what a journalist would do in selecting which documents to pass along at this time.

I'd say that their accuracy, careful decisions and thorough methodology is making them look entirely unlike a modern journalist."

HA! it's funny because it's true~!

Joking aside, Assange has admitted to throwing alot of leaks away when he felt that it could cause loss of life and danger, and even asked the US MILITARY(read; idiots) if they would like to censor anything before he leaked it(several times), in response they effectively called him a terrorist and a thief.

I mean, they had the opportunity to say "You can say this about Hillary because it will hurt the world diplomacy efforts too much" but no, they refused to even look at it.

Heck, will all of the hatred towards wikileaks that the US has given it, i'm surprised they're not trying to be MORE Hurtful to us. I mean, they're only run by humans after all, and a human can only take soo much mistreatment and abuse (mostly verbal in this case) before wanting to strangle someone.

Re: Re: Eugene

Assange did not throw anything away. He has the information stored and many copies, and in 20-50 years it will be worth a fortune and sold to the highest bidder as a collector’s items. And the tapes might even save his life.

You heard the saying, Anything you say can and will be used against you” that is the position that Assange put obama, the slut Hillary and their minions in. Bend over obama and take it, your image is scrapped.

You see we are not talking about the deployment of troops, battle plans, or the location of our submarines, Navy ships NOR their mission. We are NOT talking about secret launch codes, or the identification of undercover agents---or the new formula for high tech jet fuel.

We are talking about the caricature of world leaders, as the Saudi dictator and his family having wild sex parties, drugs and booze, hookers and parties all night where our ambassadors are invited to get so drunk they fall over, and Obama/ Biden/Hillary calls that inteligenc gathering when in reality it nothing but sloppy drunks sucking up the USA’s tax money. And this goes on in about every country the USA sends ambassadors to. And then we wonder why the world is a shit-can worm hole.

This is NO revelation, I read about the Saudi King’s drunken parties 2 years ago--- but NOW we have the PROOF and the USA ambassadors are deep in the gross frivolity.

This is what I pay taxes for, to send some shit head over seas to get drunk and chase Arab sluts? I think NOT.

Obama and his staff is shown to what we all ready know, he is nothing but an immature (infantile) party animal pretending to be president, living off a vain image that has NO merit what so ever. NOW we have the leaks to prove it. Thank you Assange, I owe you one for your bravery.

You know when the leader of Russia calls Larry King LIVE and chews out obama on USA public TV, because obama let their dirty little secret out of vile reverie, you know the world is pissed off at obama, and the hell with secrecy.

Then obama sends out his taking ass (his press secretary) to say to the USA public, “Obama has called all the world’s leaders and every thing is OK now.”---- what a load of crap! That means they have made plans to take their drunken sluts and drugs further back into the woods.

This is the entire point of the leaks, and there are over 150 thousand cables yet to be published. And I bet even more will show up as degeneracy breeds degeneracy, stupidity breeds stupidity, and that is reality.

Re:

Interesting point. If US journalism had any stones left, then we would already be looking at mirrors of the entire Wikileaks site at the New York Times, Miami Herald,
Denver Post, Chicago Tribune, etc.

After all, they (putatively) have First Amendment protection, massive budgets, armies of lawyers, etc. They're in a vastly better position to fight this battle than WL -- and they should.

But my guess is that they're content with the role they've chosen for themselves: stenographers who transcribe the words of the powerful and lack the guts to call them out -- to their faces -- when they're obviously lying.

Indirectly, that's why the reaction from inferior people like McCarthXXXXXXXLieberman is so vehement: they've gotten used to a docile press that they can manipulate. They're scared out of their minds by the prospect of one they can't. All this prattle "disclosing our secrets" is just that; what they really fear is someone, anyone, who will speak truth to power.

Re: Re:

Re: Re:

You are not likely to see mirrors of Wikileaks inside the US. It would be pretty much like waving the red flag in front of the (federal) bull. Goring (an attack by Al Gore) would likely occur.

Sadly, Wikileaks is just a data dump. Their only clever part (and that is questionable) is scanning through the data with a simple search program and pulling out things they think will have the most impact. Out of the 1000 they posted, maybe only 50 or 100 of them are truly useful, most of the others appear to be posted only because of certain keywords.

There is no attempt to correlate or build a story based on the documents, just random document, random document, random document. That isn't journalism at all. That is just being a data dump. Heck, much of what they do could ahve been done with google search if they let all documents get indexed.

Wikileaks is a major fail, because it is so far over the line, that the only people supporting it are the communists, the leftist dictators, and extreme socialists. Everyone else is pretty much disgusted.

Re: Re: Re:

You are not likely to see mirrors of Wikileaks inside the US.

There are already several hundred mirrors inside the US.

Sadly, Wikileaks is just a data dump.

You're ignoring their partnerships with several major newspapers, who have been providing the correlation and story-building you allege is missing. Therefore you're either hopelessly ignorant of the facts of this matter, or you're just lying.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

short term mirrors. How many of them are really in the US, and how many of them are hiding out at leaseweb or other offshore hosts?

One of them gets whacked, the rest of the children will pull them down quickly before mom finds out. Otherwise they could end up like that 16 year old grade 10 student in Amsterdam, looking forward to years of hard time for running a botnet.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

I'll tell you why they arrested a 16 year old. It is because a 16 year old can't afford to defend himself and his parents don't fully understand the issues at hand.
He is an easy target to set the precedent.

They'll have a lot harder time charging someone like myself and that is why they don't bother.

The other reason is that this is a media beat up. By arresting one 16 year old, they can extrapolate that all people supporting wikileaks are 16 year olds.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

No, he wasn't arrested as an easy target, he was arrested as an idiot running a lioc without being smart enough to mask his IP properly. He was arrested for controlling a large and significant cyber attack. He was arrested for being a stupid, ignorant kid who doesn't have enough life experience to realize that this sort of things doesn't work.

Want the proof that it works? The anons have suddenly decided that cyber attacks are a bad idea. Mostly, the children have crapped their pants in fear that they are next, and have decided to move on.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Oh boy. Watching Fox News is like reading the National Enquirer after a bad bender. It's loud, it's uninformed, and it's mostly wrong. The funny part is that much of what happens here on TD is pretty much the same, plenty of attempts to shout people down rather than consider their points.

Ron, based on your picture, you seem a little too mature to fall for the kiddie fare being served up here. Are you a professional student, perhaps? Or maybe you work at a University, perhaps bartender at the campus pub?

Ignorance is only thinking that you already have all the answers, and no longer opening your mind. Open your mind, and think past the end of your extremely liberal education. You might learn something!

Re: Charges??

Re: Re: Charges??

America, fuck yea!*

*Senshikaze does not support america in this particular endeavor and is not affiliated with anyone or anything involved. All rights reserved. Your results may vary. Talk to doctor before reading if you are pregnant, or may become pregnant. Senshikaze's comments are not intended for children under or over 18 years of age. Patent Pending.

Re: Re: Charges??

The meaning of press

I don't believe journalists are actually arguing whether Wikileaks is press or not.

European laws have free press provisions too. The term press simply means text and pictures. It refers to the printing press, which at the times these laws were written already covered a hell of a lot more than just newspapers.

It's just any information of opinion that is not spoken, but written down, printed, recorded, in any medium.

Methinks these journo's need to come off their high horses and do some actual reporting, dammit.

Why the press dislikes wikileaks

I think the reason the press dislikes wikileaks is simply because there's a democrat in the presidency. Democratic citizens become more concerned about government power when there's a Republican in office and vice versa when there's a Democrat in office (and the same with Republicans, in reverse). The mostly democratic press sees wikileaks as an attack on a democratic government.

weak & tepid news media output......

has been evident in the industry for at least 15 years. News media shot themselves in the Cheney over this sustained underperfomance. Now have they have arrogance to complain about Assange's news judgement? Weak. Pussies.

Re: From the how Mike misleads about wikileaks Dept.

Wikileaks did NOT leak the cables... one of the 3million people who had access to them did, to Wikileaks (who knows to whom else those cables have been leaked).

You scream bloody murder over these cables.
All wikileaks does is publish. The ones who wrote them should be punished, the one who leaked them should probably be punished (though I'd say that Bradley Manning is a fucking HERO), but please for the love of mercy, not a publishing agent like Wikileaks.

Lest all other whistleblowers will be condemned. And there will be no hope left of EVER getting truth about bad stuff come out.

Re: From the how Mike misleads about wikileaks Dept.

1) **Lurn to Speel**
2) How are Larry and your other brother Darryl, are they well?
3) As ALWAYS {{Citation Needed}}, when you spew this drivel without backing it up you look like an even bigger idiot than you already are.
4) From Wikipidea: Narcissistic Personality Disorder

"Pathological narcissism occurs in a spectrum of severity. In its more extreme forms, it is narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). NPD is considered to result from a person's belief that they are flawed in a way that makes them fundamentally unacceptable to others. This belief is held below the person's conscious awareness; such a person would typically deny thinking such a thing, if questioned. In order to protect themselves against the intolerably painful rejection and isolation that (they imagine) would follow if others recognized their supposedly defective nature, such people make strong attempts to control others’ view of them and behavior towards them.

FREEDOM FOR JULIAN ASSANGE! WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED!
America is fucking with the people of Russia because it’s passing a bill that would disadvantage American Business men. You know something’s wrong when your government supports a massive multi million dollar capitalist over the majority of the worlds people. Read more from the wikileaks cable here: http://213.251.145.96/cable/2010/02/10MOSCOW228.html
Remember: We are anonymous, we are legion. We do not forget, we do not forgive. Expect us.

so who is paying 'Time' to post as much misleading info about Wikileaks as possible? i can think of several in the government that would do so. this sort of thing is as dangerous as it is to openly call for Assange 'to be wacked'. if there was nothing to hide, there wouldn't be so many people trying to stop information from being made public. do i hear bribery as well as corruption?